The mission of the Oxford Cancer Immuno-Oncology Network (OCION) Funding Scheme is to provide short-term awards that pump-prime innovative, high-risk and proof-of-concept Oxford-based immuno-oncology research. This year we partnered with the NIHR Oxford BRC cancer and life-saving vaccine themes to fund research spanning pre-clinical biology leading to vaccine development, target discovery and/or validation through to vaccine design and preclinical testing.
The standard of applications was extremely high and we received considerably more submissions than we had funding for. After review by our scientific and patient and public involvement committee, the below projects were selected for funding.
The CRUK-Centre funded projects are:
- Audrey Gérard and Claudia Monaco, The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Exploring the relationship between the immune landscape of cancer and atherosclerotic plaques to identify targetable pathways to control tumour growth and limit atherosclerosis incidence
- Adán Pinto-Fernández, The Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Oxford Institute, Targeting ISGylation to Boost Cancer Antigenicity: A Novel Approach for Cancer Immunotherapy
The NIHR Oxford BRC funded projects are:
- Anna Schuh and Kate Ridout, Department of Oncology, Exploring Neo-Epitope Landscapes in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia for Vaccine Development
- Tamsin Cargill, NDM Experimental Medicine Division, Deciphering Tumour-associated Antigen T-cell Reactivities in Hepatocellular carcinoma to identify candidate immunogens for anti-cancer vaccine development
Congratulations to these teams and thank you to all applicants for their submissions. You can find details of previous awardees here.